


breathe in, breathe out

by lancesmiles



Series: Alone in Space [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Lion shuffle, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-11-14 06:40:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11202552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lancesmiles/pseuds/lancesmiles
Summary: Lance was alone.He’d never been alone. Not growing up in a sardine-can of siblings, not in school with his cohorts of friends who’d laugh at his jokes, not at the Garrison...Not at the Garrison where he’d found his soulmate.Another sob, and his hand went back to his empty, empty chest.orHunk never went out with Pidge and Lance that one fateful night, and now Lance is alone in space without his soulmate





	breathe in, breathe out

**Author's Note:**

> okay I saw the new trailer w black paladin keith and red paladin lance and went kinda crazy forgive me
> 
> sorry that it's "langst" like I love this boy I didn't want him to suffer but... he will be okay in the end
> 
> it's a fic for [this post](http://lancesmiles.tumblr.com/post/159802060119/alone-in-space-a-hancelangst-au-idea) that I made so yeah

The first time it happened, Lance lay tangled in alien bedsheets, blinking up at a blanket of stars.

 

He had cocooned himself on the tip of Blue’s nose, feet tucked under his body as his eyes traced the unfamiliar constellations. His original intent was to get away -- just get  _ away _ from it all -- but his little late-night escapade had morphed into more of a self pity party than any kind of meditation. Lance loved a good old pity party, they were his absolute specialty back home, but something felt different about this one. 

Something leaked out of him, it felt like. He told himself it was the tears, but really Lance knew. He knew it was more. A hole had ripped itself into his chest. Raking his fingers over the spot did nothing to alleviate the pain; it was the kind of deep, deep wound that couldn’t be affected physically. 

Empty.

That was the word.

Lance felt empty, empty, empty.

Blue fizzled on the rims of his thoughts, brushing up against them gently. But even her purr, which had been one of his only comforts since landing himself on this crazy ship, did nothing to help him tonight. 

He’d spent days -- weeks? -- cavorting across the universe, seeing things he never thought he’d see with people he’d never thought he’d see it with. He flew a giant mechanical lion, which he could talk to with his  _ mind _ , and he saw magic jump straight from the pages of storybooks. It was something mini wanna-be astronaut Lance McClain would have dreamed of. 

But not this Lance McClain.

Not eighteen year old, recently battle hardened,  _ exhausted _ Lance McClain.

He didn’t want this.

Not alone.

As soon as the thought flitted across his mind, an unbidden sob tore from his throat. Blue thrummed underneath him, more than obviously concerned, but he shut her out. He  _ had _ to shut her out. 

Alone.

Lance was alone.

He’d never been alone. Not growing up in a sardine-can of siblings, not in school with his cohorts of friends who’d laugh at his jokes, not at the Garrison... 

Not at the Garrison where he’d found his soulmate.

Another sob, and his hand went back to his empty, empty chest.

Stupid Hunk,  _ stupid _ . Why couldn’t he break the rules for  _ once _ in his goody-two-shoes life? Why couldn’t he have been a little less tired? (Who needed studying anyway?) Why couldn’t he have just snuck out with Lance and saved Shiro and gotten in the lion  _ with _ him? Why did he leave Lance up here  _ alone _ ?

But then the other, nagging, horrible thought ate at his brain: it wasn’t  _ Hunk _ who left  _ him _ alone. 

_ Lance _ left  _ Hunk _ alone. 

Lance had called him a baby. He snuck out at night and left Hunk in their room, with nothing more than a peck on the forehead and a roll of his eyes.

“Why would I do that?” he asked the stars, hushed. “The last thing I fucking said to him was that he ruined the fun. That’s what I said, I said:  _ You always ruin the fun, Hunk! _ Why did I say that? Why did I  _ fucking _ say that? I --”

He broke off again, Blue’s despair for him edging at his every corner. He let his face fall into his hands. He couldn’t look at the stars. That’s what they used to do together.

“I miss him.” His voice cracked, wavering into his sweaty palms. “I  _ love _ him. Oh God, why didn’t I tell him  _ that _ ?”

Then a feeling curled up through his ribcage, a very familiar feeling that Lance did not expect to feel so far away from its origin. His head snapped up, tears tracking salty crop circles across his cheeks. His eyes darted to his chest. A deep, buttery glow filled his vision, seeping through the patches in his (by now threadbare) t-shirt. His mouth opened in shock, but no sound escaped.

Lance leapt to his feet, feeling as though nothing but pure caffeine pumped through his veins. The blankets pooled at his feet as he frantically scrambled out of them. He could sense Blue’s confusion but he was way too frenzied to care. 

“Hunk?” He shouted, pressing a hand to his chest. “ _ Hunk _ ? Where are you? HUNK!”

He desperately slid down the side of the lion, landing badly on his leg but stumbling like a drunkard and completely disregarding it. He whipped around, left, right, gasping and looking up at the deep sky.

“ _ Hunk _ ,” he choked quietly.

He dropped his hands to his waist, twisting his fingers into his shirt. The tears fell more freely than ever. His face turned to the sky, and mirrored a moon that spun millions of light years away.

*

It happened again during battle.

 

It hadn’t happened in so long, Lance nearly forgot it  _ could _ . 

Voltron raged across the sky of a dusty, red planet where the Galra had formed an emergency base. They had a chance to actually win this one; the base was newly erected and weak. And they’d  _ finally _ managed to get Voltron together with only a couple minor hitches. 

“Lance!” Shiro’s voice roared over the intercom system, causing the boy in mention to cringe and pull back on Blue’s system. “What are you doing down there? I said I needed you to avoid stepping in those craters!”

“Sorry! I’m sorry!” he gritted his teeth, feeling the sweat bead down his temples.

He couldn’t even crack a joke to cover his mistake. The words seemed to escape him. He tried to focus on keeping Voltron’s gait even, aligning Blue’s movement with Shay’s yellow lion. He had his tracker on for the craters, his screen telling him exactly where each one was, but his brain couldn’t seem to concentrate hard enough. That empty, lonely feeling was sloshing around in his chest again and he found himself blinking back the tears.

Blue fed him encouragement, urging him to stay strong. This hadn’t happened in battle before. It was bound to, Lance reasoned, and it was just his kind of rotten luck that it would happen so soon in his universe-defending career. If he had his meds with him, if he had thought to shove at least some into his pocket back on that fateful night, if he could just  _ control _ it --

Lance bit his lip, and swerved to miss a crater on the planet’s surface. The entire robot wobbled, and the clang of furious metal above him reverberated into his bones. Keith’s sword crashed against their enemy, and his angry voice crashed against Lance’s ear drums.

“Are you  _ BLIND  _ cargo pilot?” He screamed inside Lance’s helmet. “ _ Shay _ seems to be able to avoid fucking  _ potholes _ , can you not kill us all, please?”

“S-Sorry,” Lance gasped, barely audible through gritted teeth, eyes blurry and hot as he swiped a hand across his dripping face. 

He didn’t want Keith to yell at him. Why was Keith yelling at him? He didn’t want to be here, damnit. He wanted to be home. He wanted  _ Hunk _ .

As soon as the name rolled silently past his lips he squeezed his eyes shut. He thought of warm arms bigger than the sun, and a smile to match. He thought of lazy kisses and hot Saturdays where all a body could do was lay in bed and braid silky brown hair. He thought of homemade soup and soapy dish-hands that slid teasingly up shirts. He thought of bubbled up giggles that turned into roars. 

He thought of love. 

He thought a lot of love, actually, but it hit him particularly hard in that moment.

And Lance opened his eyes, finally, to a cockpit flushed with a soft light. He looked down in awe, where a golden glow seeped through the minute seams of his armor that even space could not penetrate. 

“Hunk,” he whispered again, this time louder. 

Completely forgetting the situation he was in, he took his hands off the controls and spun around wildly in his chair. He looked underneath the console, underneath his chair, up at the ceiling and around the entire room. Then he frantically flung himself over the controls, pushing up against the glass so he could look at the rushing red ground of the planet below him. It was illogical, he knew.  _ So _ illogical that perhaps it made sense. 

“I need to find him,” he mumbled to himself, the voices of his panicking teammates drowned out by the pulsing in his ears. “Where  _ is _ he, why...”

“LANCE!” Shiro’s voice cut through his haze.

Lance looked up just in time to see Blue careen into a rock the size of the Chrysler building. He was immediately thrown to the side of the cockpit as Voltron collapsed, the sound of cracking bones popped in his ears. (His? It didn’t matter). Shouts of fear and anger fizzled through his helmet. Voltron tore apart, and Blue became independent once more. Still, even as the lion groaned beneath him, all Lance could think about was the quickly fading glow bathing the walls.

“No,” he murmured, armored fingertips crawling weakly to his dimming chest. “ _ No _ .” His cracked voice sounded crazed even to himself. “ _ Please _ ... please, don’t leave me.”

*

The third time happened after a really shitty breakfast. 

 

“Coran, you’re telling me this is  _ it _ ?”

Pidge dangled her bowl in front of the moustached man, her eyes rimmed red with exhaustion and dirty glasses. She wouldn’t look to meet any of the other paladins’ gazes, not even when Shiro tried to calm her down.

“Pidge, we all have to --”

“ _ No _ , damnit!” she slammed the bowl on the table in front of Coran and his brows furrowed with hurt.

“Now see here young lady --”

“This food  _ sucks _ , Coran. It’s flavorless slime. I thought you said after you got new ingredients at the mall we could make it  _ better _ ?”

“Well I did add some Florinian,” Coran stiffened. “It adds a nice underlying texture of --”

“It tastes the SAME!” Pidge yelled. “It tastes exactly the same as yesterday’s  _ mess _ .”

She swallowed heavily, ran a hand through her rat’s nest, and stormed from the kitchen. Her squelching footsteps echoed down the hall. The rest of the paladins sat in silence for a moment, before Allura decided to take initiative.

“Well, I better go talk to her.” She was clearly trying to sound cheery. “We’ve all had a rough couple of quintants.”

“Try a rough couple of  _ months _ ,” Lance muttered into his bowl of goo, poking at the gunk with an alien utensil.

“I better go too,” Shiro stood with a sigh and followed Allura to fulfill his duty as team leader.

Keith didn’t even look up, just glared at his bowl much in the same way Lance was doing. 

“Remember when we used to  _ joke _ about the food?” he asked, voice not sounding nearly as rough as Lance expected it to.

Lance looked over at him. Keith was clenching his gloved hands into fists so hard his knuckles had turned white. Lance turned back to his own food, refusing to let the pricks behind his eyes turn into tears.

“No,” he answered after a pause. “I don’t think we ever did.”

“Oh,” was the red paladin’s scratchy response, before he too stood and scraped his chair back.

He left the kitchen without an excuse. 

This left Lance and Shay sitting silently at the abandoned table. Although he didn’t really know the girl, Lance kind of felt closer to her than any of the other paladins. Even Pidge, who had been one of his close friends back at the Garrison, had distanced herself from him. (Or, the voice in the back of his head whispered, he distanced  _ himself _ from  _ her _ ). Shay was new, however, and presented him with no memories. She was no-nonsense, spoke very little, and when she did talk she did so with purpose and strength. As the yellow lion, Lance had to be able to work with her. They had to hold the rest of the team up.

Sometimes he felt like he did a really bad job of it.

“What is bothering you, Lance?” 

Her soft voice startled him from his stupor. He dropped the alien utensil into the bowl of goo, causing a couple green splatters to land on his now thoroughly torn apart t-shirt. 

“What? Nothing’s bothering me.” He slipped into a casual smile without meeting her eyes. “I’m just  _ peachy _ .”

“Don’t try to be funny, Lance. That will not excuse you from the bad thoughts I know you’re thinking.”

That counted as  _ humor _ , now? Man, she should have seen him back at the Garrison, when he actually remembered what a joke  _ was _ . She would have knocked herself unconscious just from laughing. 

“I’m not thinking bad things,” he told her. “I’m just... I’m thinking  _ sad _ things.”

She furrowed her brow. Standing up from her chair, she moved closer to Lance and set a huge gray hand next to his swirling bowl of green. She was always doing stuff like that, coming close and reminding you how big she was. Lance didn’t like it. It was too... familiar.

“What kind of things?”

Lance could only shake his head, mouth pressed into a thin line.

“It helps to talk sometimes, you know,” Shay said.

One second, two. Lance felt her gaze like a thumb digging into his temple. 

“I miss home,” Lance whispered. “And... I miss someone I left behind.”

The tears leaked out with his words. He furiously tried to wipe them away, but gave up when he realized they weren’t going to stop. Once upon a time he wouldn’t have let anyone see him cry, much less a pretty  _ girl _ . Now, everything felt too empty. He couldn’t even muster up an ounce of shame.

“Ah, a  _ special _ someone,” Shay intoned wisely, gravely, not-at-all-mockingly.

Lance nodded with a huge, ugly sniff as he sucked the snot back up his nose. “A really special someone.”

“Who was she?”

“He, actually. He was --  _ is _ \-- Hunk. And he’s the best person in the whole world. No, the whole universe. And now that I’ve seen almost the whole damn thing I think I should know.”

Shay seemed to be lost in thought; the room filled with the sound of Lance’s continuous sniffling. Then, a few moments later, she gasped.

“ _ Lance _ ! You... your...  _ what _ ...”

He looked down. Once again, his chest was glowing like the sun, warm and bright and hopeful. He knew it was pointless by now, but he couldn’t help his gaze from darting about the room. When he didn’t find anything, or  _ anyone _ , his hand involuntarily went to his chest as the glow quickly faded. The tears welling in his eyes began to fall without abandon.

Lance felt more alone than ever.

“Lance, Lance, are you alright? What was that?” Shay leaned forward.

She looked as though her were about to press a comforting hand to the boy’s shoulder, but thought better of it. 

“It happens,” he whispered. “I mean, not very often with humans. It’s pretty rare, actually, to legit  _ find _ your soulmate. There are just too many people.”

Shay blinked at him, confused and concerned. Lance sucked his bottom lip into his mouth, gnawing on the already bruised flesh.

“I was really lucky. I was really, really lucky.”

“I... I don’t understand.”

“That happens, the glowing thing, when they’re close to you.” His fingers found the hem of his shirt again, twisting and pulling. “When your soulmate gets close to you.”

Shay took a moment to process this. Lance didn’t even know if she understood what a soulmate  _ was _ , but he wasn’t about to explain. He was already crying enough, he reasoned, as he wiped his dripping nose with the back of his hand. 

“Is... is this  _ Hunk _ ... yours? Your... soulmate?” she asked tentatively. 

Lance nodded, sob stuck in his throat.

“But...” Shay looked around the alien kitchen in confusion, as Lance had done moments before.

“I know,” he whispered, voice cracking over words he couldn’t say. “Maybe I’m just broken or something.”

*

The next time it happened, Lance just wanted it all to end.

 

“Lance  _ fucking _ McClain.”

The aforementioned turned around slowly, bayard dangling weakly from calloused fingers. Lance met Keith’s glare head on. The older paladin’s eyes weren’t purple anymore, but nearly black; the skin around them had melted into violet fur. Lance hated when Keith got like this. Maybe  _ hate _ was too strong a word. Could Lance even hate anymore? He wasn’t sure.

“What, Keith?”

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Give me that  _ sigh _ bullshit. Like you don’t care.”

Lance opted to stay silent. He’d told the black paladin that he didn’t care before. That hadn’t gone over well. His ass had been in the training room after lights out for  _ movements _ . 

“Lance this is the goddamn universe. You don’t have to like it but you have to fucking care.”

_ Not my universe _ , he thought.  _ My universe is somewhere else.  _

“We almost died out there because of you today. I will not have a member of my team become so damn apathetic that he can’t block a blow.”

“It’s not my fault,” Lance could feel the heat building up in his throat, behind his eyes, in his fists. “Red doesn’t  _ respond _ to me like Blue did. I can’t get her to move fast enough.”

“That’s because  _ you’re _ not fast enough, Lance!” Keith snapped, running a hand through his now shoulder-length hair. (Since...  _ it _ happened, he hadn’t let any of the paladins near him with a scissors -- that had always been Shiro’s job). “The Red lion needs a passionate pilot, one that is quick and willing to fight. You told me you could handle that position and I trusted you, because that’s what a  _ team _ does. But obviously I should have gone with my gut. That’s what  _ leaders _ do.”

Lance pulled his lips back into a snarl. “ _ Passion _ ? You want fucking passion? Try this on for size you asshole!”

Then they were both on the ground, Lance pummeling his fists into Keith’s stupid chest, tears hot and not drying nearly fast enough. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that when Shiro died Keith could just shut it all away. It wasn’t  _ fair _ that he never cried. It wasn’t fair that Keith got to be this wonderful, talented leader while Lance had been spiralling into a worse mess every tick since day one. It wasn’t fair that Keith was sitting here telling him how to save the universe when Lance only cared about  _ one freaking being  _ in that entire universe and there was nothing he could do about it. 

It wasn’t fair that Lance’s loss had  _ completely consumed _ him, while Keith’s loss seemed like a bug he brushed off his shoulder. 

It only took a few ticks for Keith to pin him down, bayard kicked across the room and knee to his chest. Lance stared up at the black paladin’s cold eyes, his own so blurred out by a wet, salty mess that he couldn’t muster up the will to be embarrassed. 

“You aren’t training enough,” Keith finally said, letting Lance up abruptly.

He turned away, so Lance could no longer see his face. He stood at the doorway, hand on the metallic frame, shoulders slumped with the question of how to be a leader. 

“I... I’m sorry Lance.” The words were forced and empty. “I know we weren’t ever really a team, but we’re probably less of one now. You just can’t... you can’t just zone out on me. We’re a really, really, shitty team but we’re the only thing standing against Lotor.”

Lance stared at the metal wall, refusing to look at Keith.

“Shiro wouldn’t have punched me.”

“Yeah, well if your dumb  _ boyfriend _ was here maybe he could’ve held your ass back from punching  _ me _ .”

Lance heard feet stomping angrily down the hall, but even after Keith was gone he couldn’t bring himself to sit up. He just curled into an even tighter ball. 

When his chest began to glow, it was to the vision of Hunk’s warm brown eyes dancing behind his eyelids.

Lance hated the  _ anxiety _ the damn glowing brought (and the sad reminder that Hunk wasn’t with him) but usually whenever his chest lit up he welcomed it. It made him feel warm, if only for a moment, and it meant Hunk was still out there somewhere. It reminded him he wasn’t  _ that _ alone, it gave him something to look forward to, it kept him grounded when he felt like he was losing his sanity and treating his teammates like monsters.

But this time it didn’t feel like that.

It  _ hurt _ . His chest burned with the harsh light, and the sobs that tore from Lance’s parched throat barely sounded human. Because he  _ was _ alone. He was so, very deeply alone and he knew he was never going to see Hunk again. 

Keith hated him, Pidge no longer spoke to him, Shay tolerated him out of pity, and Allura had forgotten about his existence. Lance had painted himself into the background. He pushed people so far away they couldn’t begin to hurt him any more than he had been hurt. As time drew on, the hole in his chest had gotten bigger and bigger until it wasn’t just his chest but his whole body. His entire  _ being _ felt like a void, scraped out by some invisible hand. He knew Hunk had taken this from him, his other half. Lance felt incomplete, he felt ripped apart, he felt gutted and shredded and spread out like dust in the desert. He’d grown thin and sallow, and when he managed to say anything at all it was moody and bitingly sarcastic.

Hunk had taken away who he  _ was _ . He had torn up his soul from across the universe and it wasn’t  _ fair _ . 

“Please,” Lance cried into his weathered palms. “Please, I just want this to go away, make it  _ stop _ , please.”

The glow persisted, coating him, wrapping around him, swimming in his tears.

“Hunk!” he sobbed, hands clawing at his chest and tugging at his knotted hair. “ _ Hunk _ ! I need you, p-please, I need you! I can’t do this anymore, I don’t want t-to d-do this anymore,  _ please _ !”

But nobody heard him, and Lance fell asleep on the hangar floor, awash in that undying, scathing,  _ blinding _ yellow glow. 

*

The last time it happened, Lance finally understood why.

 

Allura stood across from the four of them, but stared only at Lance with shocked incredulity. 

“What do you mean, you won’t come? These accords are what we’ve been working for, Lance! This is... this is it. This is the end of the Galran empire and you... you won’t  _ be _ there for the signing?”

He exhaled a breath of indifference. 

“Allura, I’m not a diplomat. I might be able to fly a spaceship but I don’t even know if I remember how to sign my own name. Not that it’ll be on the accords anyway.”

“Lance --”

“Look, Allura.” He stared at the beautiful face that had grown so much older and so familiar. “I did not sign up, for any of this. I stayed because I had to. And now that it’s all over, I want to be done.”

“But it’s not over, Lance.” It was Keith who spoke softly this time, leaving Allura floundering for words. “It won’t  _ ever _ be over. You might not think of yourself as a diplomat but you’ve got to  _ become _ one. Defending the universe isn’t all about fighting, it’s about maintaining peace too. We’re the paladins of Voltron. It’s kind of a lifetime gig.”

Lance stared. Keith’s face had grown weathered too. Tired but still determined, the fire dimmed to a controlled simmer. How old was he now? He couldn’t have been more than 30, but his eyes spoke of years he’d lived within every second of battle. 

After a long breath of silence, Lance finally spoke.

“No.”

“ _ What _ ?”

“I’m not doing it. This might be a lifetime gig for you, but it’s not for me. You can find another red paladin. I’m going home.”

Lance turned and looked at Shay and Pidge, who looked back at him with sad eyes. 

“But Lance,” Pidge said softly. “Isn’t  _ this _ your home?”

An old feeling tugged in his chest. (Was that, loss? Sadness? He could no longer name it).

“No, Pidge. Home is Earth.”

He said it with no intonation. No semblance of truth. He said it because he’d been repeating it to himself from the moment they left that planet all those years ago. The woman, for she was a woman now, shook her head slowly. 

“Not for me. I don’t have anything there anymore, Lance. Dad and Matt are dead. I don’t... that might be your home, still, but it’s not mine. I don’t even remember how any of it looks.”

Her voice might have cracked, Lance couldn’t tell. He turned to Keith, that old feeling becoming more and more prominent. 

“Keith?”

Their leader closed his eyes. One tick. Two. When he opened them again, they held nothing but stone.

“You know there’s nothing back on Earth for me. Up here is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a family.”

And staring at his enemy that had somehow become the person he relied on most, Lance knew he would miss it. He’d miss the race, and the adrenaline rush of the win. He’d miss the endless expanse of stars. He’d miss Allura’s patient smile and the quiet jokes Pidge would sometimes crack after Keith used to go haywire. He’d miss Blue, he’d miss Blue most of all. And he’d miss Red, too, because she cared for him despite his lack of ability as her pilot. 

But missing this wouldn’t come close to the way he’d missed Earth.

The way he’d missed...

“I’m sorry, Lance,” Allura said, bringing him out of his stupor. “I didn’t realize you were so unhappy. I... I know nothing I could say will change your mind, but I wish for you to know how much I care for you. I’ll get a pod ready for you, and open up a wormhole.”

He blinked at her. “Wait, you mean...”

“You can go back to Earth. I’m not going to hold you prisoner. You’ve completed the greatest mission Voltron has ever accomplished. I’d say that’s enough for me.”

Her smile held a broken promise, but her eyes meant him well and the tears behind them proved it. Lance swallowed, nodded at her, and felt his lips turn up into that well-practiced smile. But something about this one felt different. More like he meant it.

When Allura left the room, he turned to the others. 

“I’m sorry, but I have to do this,” he told them. “I left too much back there. I... I can’t be the paladin you all want me to be anymore. I’m not even sure if I ever was.”

He gave minute huff of laughter. Pidge stepped forward and took Lance’s hands in her own. The human contact shocked him for a moment, almost causing him to pull his hands away.

“I’m sorry too. I should’ve done more for you, I was hurting and young and stupid and by the time I realized it was too late and I was too proud.”

Lace pulled her into a hug, then, pressing his face into her hair that smelled like alien soaps. 

“For what it’s worth,” he mumbled. “I’m glad that it was you I snuck out with that night. If I had to end up in space without... without  _ him _ , I’m glad it happened with you.”

Lance stood back then, feeling a little self conscious at his outward display of affection. But Shay managed to break the silence, her voice as sweet and gravelly as ever.

“We’ll have to come visit you on Earth, Lance. I very much wish to see your planet!”

“Yeah,” Keith piped in grudgingly, a sad grin managing to work its way across his face. “Eventually we’ll have to show up. We can’t expect you to explain all...  _ this _ by yourself.”

Lance nodded to him, unable to muster up a happy expression. He didn’t want to say goodbye, so he didn’t; he followed the path Allura had taken out of the room. Before he left, however, he turned to look over his shoulder.

“Make sure whoever you get to pilot Red treats her right, yeah? And make sure they know who the Hell I was.”

“So, the small favor of a badass legacy?” Keith asked, and Lance finally found it in himself to grin.

“Exactly.”

And he was gone.

He met Allura by the pod. It was an old one, lacking the renovations that Pidge had added to the majority of them, but Lance knew they couldn’t just spare a perfectly good pod for him. They wouldn’t be getting it back.

“Well, it looks all ready. As soon as you’re in, I’ll open up the wormhole,” Allura said, avoiding eye contact with Lance.

He caught her by the arm, stopping her.

“Hey, this isn’t your fault.”

Blazing eyes met his, and he saw how broken up she truly was.

“You did the best you could, making us a team. I was just never... I was never a part of it. Nothing was gluing me there. I’m sorry, Princess.”

She gave a choked laugh, and pulled herself from Lance’s grip. “Quiznak, you’re so serious. You used to at least  _ try _ for some lightheartedness.”

All Lance could give was a sympathetic smile and one last request.

“Take care of Blue, OK? She really cares about you.”

“She still cares about you, too, Lance.”

He got in the pod without looking back at her. The space smelled musty, and for a second his heart gripped with fear. What was he doing? Why was he leaving? He was going to be alone in this pod, alone without his lion, without his team, alone alone alone again --

He turned back just before the door hissed shut, calling to the sliver of Allura’s form that he could still see.

“Thank you! Thank you for believing in me!”

The door closed, and the inside of the pod shuddered to life. Blue lights bathed him. It was cold. He grabbed the helmet from the wall, sealing it to his head. It fit uncomfortably, and was nowhere near as technologically advanced as the paladin helmets. There was no com system. No one to talk to anyway. And when Lance shot out into space towards the huge blue wormhole, he had no backup. 

_ This is the last time I’m going to see it like this _ , he realized.  _ This part of my life is going to be gone forever _ . 

Lights and sounds warped around him when he flew through the wormhole. He ground his teeth, clenching the controls of the sophomoric pod as it trembled beneath his fingers. Unlike his lion, he couldn’t communicate with this stupid pod. He couldn't hold it together through sheer force of will. If the wormhole decided to tear him up, that would be that.

But he made it through, entirely unscathed, and the sight before him knocked the breath from his lungs.

Earth. It was Earth. 

The swirling greens and blues matched so many other planets he had seen, but this one was so, so different. 

“ _ Home _ .”

Breaking through the atmosphere nearly killed him. The pod was thrown like a leaf, left and right and back again. He’d been so used to the lions that he’d forgotten that in a regular spacecraft he actually had to harness himself in, which resulted in him clinging to the seat for dear life. The only thought that managed to stay in his mind was that NASA must be going nuts at this barely competent alien spacecraft breaching the planet.

He pulled tight on the controls, barely holding it steady. 

His aim had been true. 

He crashed in the ocean, less than a mile out from the shore of Havana. His teeth jarred with the impact, lights blaring at him from every corner of the console. He could feel the craft sinking, and he knew if he waited any longer to blow the hatch he’d be stuck. With a slam of his hand the top flew off the pod, showering him in a spray of saltwater.  _ Saltwater _ . It landed on his tongue and his eyelashes and Lance gagged at the pungent taste. Did he  _ really _ used to have contests with his brothers on who could hold a mouthful of it for the longest? Or was that a dream? And then he got his first gulp of air, and his head swam. The pressure, the taste, the smell of fish and sand and  _ Earth _ ...

Pulling himself from the wreck and swimming past gaping masses of humans felt surreal. The water was as brilliantly turquoise as the Arusian sky. He had to double take at every human face he saw; they looked more alien to him than the soft, purple visage of a snarling Galran. Did humans  _ really _ look like that? How had he forgotten so easily? 

Murmurs, whispers, sirens, dust. Lance ran. He didn’t remember it like this.

His feet knew the streets more than his mind did, taking paths that only muscles can remember. He recognized tall houses, crumbling street signs, pastel boxes as if looking down at them through a foggy pond. His feet splashed through brown puddles as he ran  _ faster _ ,  _ harder _ . 

And then he came to a shocked halt.

Sweat trickled down his neck and his eyes felt too big for their sockets as he stood across from his childhood home. But it wasn’t the house’s shabby appearance or different color paint job that had him reeling. 

It was the feeling in his chest. 

He looked down.

He had begun to glow. 

It seemed to happen in slow motion, like the final strokes of a battle, the one that determined the victor. He started to run again, but he couldn’t tell how fast. Moments seemed like hours and days, and then he was at the front door of his house with one name on his lips.

He reached for the rusted handle but it wasn’t there. The door opened before he could tough it.

And suddenly the light emitting from Lance doubled. It was bright enough to make him blink, bright enough to rival the sun that beamed down hot, hotter than Lance remembered. 

He found himself face to face with a chest twice as wide as his own, glowing just as vigorously. His eyes traveled upwards. Two brown eyes peered at him over a sun-browned nose, a mouth opened deeply in shock.

And it felt like someone had poured a pitcher of honey straight into Lance, filling up the hole that had consumed him for so long. His entire being  _ shone _ . 

“You know, a proper greeting for someone you love is usually a smile,” Lance choked out, eyes filling rapidly as he grinned. “Right now you look kind of like a fish.”

And then he was in Hunk’s arms, crushed and crying, clinging as tightly as possible to someone he’d never thought he’d see again. They were both sobbing, shining, gripping each other fiercely.

“ _ Lance-- _ ”

That voice. 

“Lance, my sweetheart,  _ fuck _ , oh God,  _ Lance-- _ ”

He laughed giddily, then, burrowing his face into Hunk’s solid neck. 

“Fuck.” Was all he could bring himself to say. “Fuck, I  _ missed _ you.”

Hunk laughed too, pulling back only to pepper the other’s face with kisses. Between each one he gasped through his tears.

“I missed you -- too -- fuck -- it’s  _ you _ \-- Lance -- I love you -- I  _ love _ you -- I thought about you -- every  _ damn _ day --”

Lance stopped him, grabbing his soulmate’s face between his hands. When he kissed him, it was like he’d never even left. 

“I love you too,” he managed to whisper against furious lips. “I’m finally,  _ finally _ home.”

**Author's Note:**

> talk hance to me at my [tumblr](lancesmiles.tumblr.com)!!
> 
> also drop a comment i live for that shit


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